The Reserve: Archive of Top-Scoring Essays

Since the BERKELEY PRIZE’s inception in 2000 as an international digital essay competition for undergraduate students studying architecture, nearly 2000 students from 62 countries have participated by submitting essay proposals. These are reviewed by, now, 64 readers: BERKELEY PRIZE Committee Members who are architects, educators, allied professionals, social scientists, and past PRIZE winners. The effort is to determine which proposals show the greatest likelihood to become substantial and meaningful essays.

Although the number varies, each year approximately twenty-five to thirty students who write these promising proposals are named as Semifinalists and invited to submit a 2500-word essay. Most do. Again, the essays are reviewed by the all of the readers and a small number, perhaps eight, are named as Finalists. These top-scoring and other intriguing essays are forwarded to that year's specially selected Jury to determine the normally four overall winners of the competition.

The quality of all of these essays, winners or not, is uniformly high. They exhibit a wide diversity and often intriguing responses to the Question. Even when the students are not able to express themselves in the most elegant language, there is often great passion for the subject and excitement in the writing. For whatever reason some of these essays did not place as ultimate winners, there is intrinsic value in reading and thinking about all of them. The Reserve provides the opportunity to do exactly that.

The top 16 essays from recent PRIZE cycles are listed below, each with links to the texts and accompanying photographs. If you would like to contact the author of one or more of these essays, simply contact the PRIZE. We will forward your request to the author and ask them to respond directly to you if they are interested in doing so. We assume most will do exactly that. Please take advantage of this added opportunity to learn more about the social art of architecture from some of the best undergraduate architecture students in the world.

(NOTE: The winning essays from each PRIZE cycle and the identity of their authors can be seen in the individual archives for those years. Visit the Essay Prize Competition.)

2019 - Architecture and Climate Resilience

Winners have not yet been announced. Please check back in the near future.

For permission for any form of re-use of any of the contents, please contact info@berkeleyprize.org.The BERKELEY PRIZE is endorsed by the Department of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley.